What do you understand by activity and selectivity of a catalyst ? Give one example of each.

Explanation

Activity of Catalyst : The ability of a catalyst to accelerate the rate of a chemical reaction is called activity. The degree of catalytic activity of a catalyst may be high as `10^(10)`. For e.g. hydrogen and oxygen don.t react at room temperature but in the presence of platinum as catalyst, the reaction is violently explosive.
`H_(2(g))+O_(2(g)) underset("catalyst") overset("Pt")to H_(2)O(l)+` Heat
Selectivity: It is the ability of a catalyst to direct a reaction to yield particular products e.g. n-heptane gives toluene selectivity over platinum as a Catalyst.